


I'll Forget You Not

by mysensitiveside



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 23:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7128572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysensitiveside/pseuds/mysensitiveside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Myka gets whammied, and it makes her see things a little differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Forget You Not

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an anonymous prompt on tumblr: #17. "Everyone keeps telling me you're the bad guy."
> 
> This mostly takes place sometime between episode 3.05 ("3... 2... 1...") and episode 3.08 ("The 40th Floor").

“Myka? Myka, can you hear me?”

“Dude, she doesn’t look good. Mykes?”

“Oh god. Is she still breathing??”

“Yes, Claudia, I’m sure she is. I just checked her pulse 30 seconds ago.”

“Well check again, Steve! What if she’s stopped?”

“It’s all right Claudia, I’m sure that—”

“Oh shut up, H.G., this is all your fault.”

“ _My_ fault? _You_ were the one who—”

She groaned. God, her head hurt.

At least the voices seemed to have stopped.

“Mykes?”

More like a temporary pause, then.

She groaned again, struggling to sit up.

Without warning, too many hands to count descended on her, holding her down. She flinched and tried to shift away from their touch, but had nowhere to go.

“Just stay still, Myka. We’re not sure what the effects of this are, so just sit tight.”

Why was there so much talking?

Finally, she managed to open her eyes, blinking rapidly against the too-bright light around her.

 _God_ , her head hurt.

She looked around, managing to move her head the least amount possible. She was lying flat on the floor, while four fuzzy figures huddled around her. They were _way_ too close, considering she didn’t recognize a single one of them. Granted, they did all look pretty blurry, so maybe that was the problem.

She kept blinking, and they slowly came in to focus.

Struggling not to panic, she shoved their hands away and gritted her teeth against the pain in her head as she pushed herself into a sitting position. She lowered her head and lifted her knees, wrapping her arms around the backs of her thighs so she could curl in on herself and try to breathe deeply.

“Move back, let her breathe,” one of the voices—the British one—urged, and she was grateful for it.

She didn’t know how much time passed like that, but thankfully they let her be, and none of them said anything beyond some quiet murmurs amongst themselves that she couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to.

Eventually, though, the pain in her head lessened enough that she found herself at least slightly more ready to take on whatever the hell was going on.

Exhaling deeply one more time, she lifted her head and once again took in the scene around her.

They were all looking at her, a mix of anxiety and hopeful anticipation written clearly across their faces.

“Okay,” she said, “who the hell are all of you people?”

If it weren’t for the continued throbbing in her head, she might have laughed at the way that their faces simultaneously fell.

The redhead was the first to find her voice again.

“Someone call Artie.”

***

“How are you feeling?”

The woman—Leena, she reminded herself—had been exceedingly kind, but she (and she was Myka, apparently) still couldn’t help but regard her warily.

“I know you’ve all told me that I have amnesia,” she said. “And, fine, yeah, that fits with the fact that I don’t really seem to remember who I _am_ , which is extremely disconcerting. But I don’t think that I’ve forgotten how the entire world works. I might be the one with brain damage, but you do realize that you all sound insane, right?”

Leena smiled sympathetically.

She—Myka; her name was Myka—went on, “I mean, we all work for a secret government agency that works to protect the world from supernatural-slash-magical artifacts? Do you even listen to yourselves? You all sound completely _batshit insane_!”

The corners of Leena’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Yeah, I know,” she admitted calmly.

Myka huffed out a short laugh. “Well,” she concluded, “at least we’re on the same page about that, then.”

***

“What happened to the other one of you?” Myka asked, the day after the doctor, a kind woman named Vanessa, had verified that there was nothing wrong with her; other than the whole issue of acute memory loss, at least.

“Huh?” the big one—Pete—replied, eloquent as ever, just before he took a huge bite out of his sandwich.

“When I first came to after being ‘whammied,’ or whatever, there was another one of you,” Myka explained, picking lightly at her own lunch. “A British woman. What happened to her?”

Everyone else sitting at the table glanced around at each other; they obviously knew exactly whom she meant, but they seemed reluctant to talk about it.

“We, uh…” Claudia finally began. “We put her away.”

For a moment, Myka could only stare, uncomprehending. “You _what_?” she demanded.

Steve cleared his throat. “Maybe we should show Myka what Claudia means?” he suggested, looking pointedly at the older man whose name Myka had forgotten.

Bushy Eyebrows frowned.

Steve went on, undeterred. “I mean, seeing H.G., you know, whoosh out of her Pokeball—it might help Myka remember that artifacts are real.”

“She doesn’t _actually_ have amnesia,” Bushy Eyebrows countered with a scoff. “We don’t need to provide her with details from her life, in order to spark some memory. We need to do our jobs, and find and neutralize the artifact.” Glaring at Claudia, he added, “And everyone needs to stop calling it a Pokeball!”

Claudia simply smiled in feigned innocence.

“Okay, you’re talking about me as if I weren’t sitting _right_ here,” Myka protested. “And I’m with Steve. I want to see her ‘whoosh out’ of the whatever.” She gestured vaguely, as if she knew what she was talking about.

So many of the words these people used made _no_ sense whatsoever, but Myka had quickly learned to just go with it. “You never know,” she finished, “it might help.”

She wasn’t sure why she was so adamant about getting to see the other woman. But it had bothered Myka, somehow, to not see her around.

“No,” Bushy Eyebrows insisted. “It won’t. H.G. stays right where she is.”

***

The next night, Myka was about to get ready for bed—it felt strange, being in her room; completely unfamiliar, but somehow comfortable, like some deep part of her recognized it as home—when there was a light knock at her door.

“Come in,” she called out, and the door opened just slightly, as Leena poked her head inside and glanced around Myka’s room.

Myka was about to ask what Leena wanted, but Leena spoke first.

“What Artie doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?” she said. That only confused Myka further, until Leena opened the door wider to reveal the other person standing behind her in the hallway.

“Oh it’s you,” was all Myka could think to say.

H.G. offered a slight smile, but said nothing as she walked into the room.

Leena came in as well, placing a small black orb on Myka’s desk and adding, “I’ll come back later.” She and H.G. nodded to each other, before Leena walked back out and closed the door behind her, leaving Myka and H.G. alone.

“Hello, Myka,” H.G. began. “It’s good to see you, though, as I understand it, you are still experiencing the undue influence of the latest Warehouse mishap.”

“The way you describe it is a lot more elegant than Pete’s version,” Myka said with a smile. His terminology was easy to adopt, but she still wasn’t sure what she thought about having been ‘whammied.’

H.G. chuckled; a small, light sound. “Well a stomping elephant could easily be more elegant than he is, but I will take the compliment.”

They exchanged smiles, but it felt so stiff and awkward and _wrong_ in a way that Myka couldn’t even begin to articulate.

Myka rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. “Um, would you like to sit?” she asked, gesturing with her other hand towards the chair by her desk.

H.G.’s expression hardened, turning darker. “No, thank you,” she replied simply, as she brought her hands in front of her body, gripping one tightly in the other. “So you really don’t remember?” she went on. “Nothing about the Warehouse, or Pete and Claudia, or… well, about me?”

Myka shook her head. “They figured out what did it, at least. Something about some old psychologist named Ribot, I think? But when the thing… was activated, or whatever, they think I must have been closest to it because I got the worst of the effects, but it also made everyone else forget where it’s located.”

H.G. nodded, as if any of that made any sense.

“In a way, I suppose that’s rather better for me,” she remarked dryly. At Myka’s questioning look, she added, “I have done a fair number of things that… Well, suffice it to say that if you remembered any of it, I would surely not be here right now. But it means a lot to me what you wished to see me, and, selfish as I am, I— I am glad to be here.”

Frustration mounting, Myka frowned. She didn’t remotely understand where these feelings of hers were coming from, but…

Myka sighed, beginning to stride back and forth across her room. “Everyone keeps telling me you’re the bad guy. No one will explain what it is that you’ve done, but it’s definitely the general consensus that you’ve done something pretty majorly bad. Now even _you’re_ basically saying it.”

She stopped moving and turned to face H.G., who looked down, shame coloring her features.

“ _But_ ,” Myka went on, taking several steps closer to H.G. “If you’re the bad guy, then why do I—”

Myka broke off, unsure how to finish her question.

H.G. looked up again, and her eyes caught onto Myka’s own. “Why do you what?” she prompted, an almost breathless tone to her voice.

Part of Myka wanted to look away, embarrassed, but she held onto H.G.’s gaze. “Why do I look for you when you’re not around? Why do I feel drawn to you in a way that I don’t feel towards anyone else? Why is it that I don’t really know a single thing about you—I don’t even know what H.G. stands for—but you…” H.G. was simply staring at her, eyes wide and full of… Full of _yearning_. Myka inhaled deeply. “Somehow you’re the only thing here that makes any kind of sense to me. You make me feel warm; like maybe I’m not so completely alone. So how can you be the bad guy, if you make me feel all of that?”

H.G. drew in a deep, shaky breath. “Oh, Myka,” she breathed out. Her expression was one of hope and devastation in equal measure.

She started to reach out a tentative hand towards Myka, only to suddenly snap it back down so she could shove both hands into her pockets.

There was a long beat of silence before H.G. continued. Her smile was a sad one as she said, “You didn’t use to call me H.G. all that much, really. You called me Helena. You were the only one who did.”

“Helena.” Myka tested the name on her tongue, and yes, that sounded right, somehow.

Helena tore her gaze away from Myka, then, turning her head and closing her eyes.  So she didn’t see it when Myka took another step towards her. “Helena please,” Myka pressed, unsure exactly what she was asking for. “If you could just help m—”

Her words broke off as she reached out, and… instead of landing on Helena’s arm, her hand passed right through.

“Oh god.” Myka stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over her own feet. “Oh god, you’re not real. How could you not be real? What _are_ you?”

Helena reopened her eyes the instant Myka had tried to touch her, her face stricken. “Myka, no. Please listen,” she pleaded. She reached out both hands, palms stretched outward in a gesture of both appeasement and longing. “I _am_ real, I promise you that I am. I’m just… not _here_ , exactly.”

Myka stood with her back up against a wall, her arms crossed tightly in front of her. “Well where are you, then?” she asked, wary.

Helena released a short laugh that held no trace of amusement and dropped her hands back down to her sides. “Can you believe we’ve already had a conversation quite similar to this one?” She shook her head, clearly frustrated, and ran a hand through her hair. “I— I don’t precisely know where I am. My body is… elsewhere, but my consciousness is stored within that orb.” She nodded towards the black thing that Leena had brought with her, but about which Myka had promptly forgotten. Oh, Steve had said something about some kind of ball, hadn’t he?

Helena continued, “In this form—a kind of hologram, as I understand it—I can be brought out or… put away whenever the others so desire. It is my deserved punishment; my prison.”

The words were clearly painful for Helena to say, and just the thought of it…

“But that’s…” Myka paused, before finishing, “ _cruel_.”

Of all things, Helena smiled. “I should have known better,” she said. “I thought you were going to say ‘impossible.’”

Myka shrugged, explaining, “My sense of what’s possible or impossible has gotten a bit shaky, lately.”

Neither woman said anything for a spell, as they continued to simply stare wordlessly at each other, until Helena broke the uneasy silence.

“I betrayed you,” she confessed. “You trusted me, and in return I… I almost sent the world into another ice age. On purpose.”

Myka blinked, trying to wrap her mind around Helena’s statement.

They lapsed back into silence until Myka thought to ask, “Almost? What stopped you?”

Another soft, wistful smile. “You did. You helped me to see the error of my ways,” Helena replied.

There was more to that story, Myka could tell, but it didn’t feel like the right time to get into it.

“It’s still cruel,” she decided. “Especially since you didn’t go through with it.”

Maybe it was an effect of not having the visceral memories of what Helena had done, but, in spite of everything—in spite of Helena being a hologram and in spite of her crimes—Myka _still_ felt drawn to her, regardless.

Slowly, she uncrossed her arms and stepped forwards once again, towards Helena, who watched her approach with a wary hunger in her eyes.

Myka stopped right in front of Helena and held up her right hand, palm open and facing outwards. Helena simply looked at it uncertainly until Myka urged, “Put yours…”

Helena got the message and raised her own left hand up to mirror Myka’s.

“Can you feel that?” Myka whispered.

Helena shook her head, but she kept her hand right where it was.

“I can feel you,” Myka told her. The sensation was just barely there; just a light tingling of energy.

Myka had been staring intently at Helena’s hand, at the way that it seemed to almost merge with Myka’s own, so it caught her by surprise when Helena pulled back and away with a choked back sob.

“I wish _so_ much that things were different,” she said. “I wish…” Her voice trailed off as she reached up to rub at her eyes.

When she looked back at Myka, something had changed. “I imagine that Leena will be back to retrieve me soon,” she said, with no trace of the emotion that had been there mere moments before.

Myka said nothing at first, not quite understanding what had just happened. She’d pushed Helena too far; that much was clear.

Still, she felt the need to add, “It’s just a hunch, but I think that I had already forgiven you.”

Helena looked down to her feet, and it was several long moments before she could look back up and say, “Maybe you could tell me that again when you have your memories back.”

Myka nodded.

***

The following morning, Pete, Claudia, and Steve all went off to work on Myka’s memory problem, while Myka was left behind. Artie had decided that until she was back to being herself, she wouldn’t be allowed in the Warehouse.

So she and Leena shared a companionable silence, Myka reading a book as Leena prepared a grocery list.

They didn’t talk about H.G. Myka wanted to know why Leena had let the two of them talk when Artie had been so firmly set against the idea—when everyone but Leena seemed so firmly set against Helena entirely—but  she didn’t dare ask.

Myka knew the very instant that the others finally managed to find and neutralize Ribot’s watch.

She inhaled sharply, causing Leena to look over at her in alarm, gasping at the sudden onslaught of memories that flooded her mind.

It must have been clear what had happened, because Leena just smiled warmly and said, “Welcome back, Myka.”

***

Helena’s words echoed in Myka’s mind.

_“Maybe you could tell me that again when you have your memories back.”_

Her amnesiac self had been right; she _had_ forgiven Helena—mostly forgiven, anyway—although she hadn’t fully realized it before. And she did think about telling Helena. She had a feeling that if she asked Leena about having a chance to speak with Helena again, Leena wouldn’t object.

But something held her back. She was almost embarrassed at how, looking back on it, it felt like she’d practically thrown herself at H.G.

Maybe it wasn’t that bad, but… Myka felt like she didn’t know what she would do or what she would say if she were alone with Helena again. She didn’t know what she wanted.

So she did nothing; said nothing.

***

Until one night in Wisconsin, when suddenly, Myka knew that she couldn’t continue to do nothing.

“Pete!” she exclaimed, startling him badly. “You have to turn the car around.”

“What?” They were stopped at a red light, and he looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Myka, what are you talking about?”

“Please, Pete. Don’t ask me why, but I have to go talk to her again. I have to try.” She looked at him imploringly. She didn’t know how she’d possibly waited this long, but it now felt like, if she kept waiting even a little bit more, she would be too late.

Something must have clicked for Pete, because he just smiled and said, “Okay. Let’s go get her.”

The car behind them honked, as the light had turned green, and Pete pulled a rapid U-turn, driving quickly back the other way without another word.

They hadn’t been driving long, and Pete seemed to sense Myka’s urgency, so it was even faster going back.

“I’ll go drive around, try to find some food or something,” he told her once he’d pulled up by H.G.’s house. “Just call me when I should come back, okay?”

“Thanks, Pete.” She smiled at him, so grateful to have a friend like him in her life. “Wish me luck.”

In response, he held up his hand for them to bump fists.

Myka was already starting to panic, so the gesture did the trick of getting a laugh out of her.

And then Myka was left on her own with “Emily Lake’s” perfect house looming up before her.

Thankfully, at least, Helena must have heard their car and looked out, because it was only a few moments before the front door opened and Helena came outside, closing the door behind her.

“Myka?” she called out, clearly confused. “Did you forget something? Where is Pete?”

Myka just smiled, the same forced, pained smile she’d been smiling all day. “Yeah, I did forget something,” she said, soft enough that she doubted that Helena could hear her.

Somehow she couldn’t seem to make herself walk up to that house again—that house that was everything “normal” that Helena wanted. She remained rooted to the spot, and finally, Helena walked out to her instead.

“Myka, what is it?” she asked, her arms wrapping around herself in the cool night air.

Myka searched Helena’s face, looking for any sign that what she was about to try to say might be welcome. There was concern there; Helena _did_ care. But Myka was too nervous—too heartbroken, if she was honest—to really read anything deeper, one way or the other.

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” she began. “I was thinking, today, about that time that I had amnesia. Do you remember?”

Clearly confused by Myka’s train of thought, Helena still nodded.

“That was really hard, you know? Being thrown into the deep end with all the Warehouse stuff, and not having any idea of who I was, or who any of these other really strange people were, all of whom seemed totally crazy.”

Helena smiled, nostalgic. “Yes, I imagine that would be difficult.”

“Yeah.” Myka’s eyes were already getting teary, but she went on. “But then there was you. And you felt _right_ to me, in a way that nothing else did.”

Myka had to pause to swallow, her throat overly dry. Helena opened her mouth to speak, but Myka held up a hand. She needed to get this all out now, or she feared she never would.

As soon as she could, she went on, “You once told me that the Warehouse was your tether in this new, modern world. Helena, when nothing else in my life was familiar, _you_ were my tether.”

Helena inhaled sharply at that, but Myka couldn’t stop to think about what the reaction meant. She wiped hastily at the tears in her eyes and pushed on.

“And I’m sorry, but I take everything back that I said earlier. I understand wanting a normal life, I honestly do. But you are so much _more_ than all of this. I told you to fight for him, but this is me, fighting for you. I _know_ you, Helena. You once said that I knew you better than anyone else. I did mean it when I said that you’re very good at caring for people. But I—”

Myka faltered, her voice breaking.

“Helena, I _love_ you. So don’t make your home here. You already have a home. Even when I didn’t know who I was, I still knew how important you were to me. I was right that I had already forgiven you, and I never told you that, even though I’d said that I would, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t just _talk_ to you afterwards, because maybe then things wou—”

“Oh Myka, sometimes you talk too much,” Helena interrupted, her eyes shining, before she reached for the back of Myka’s neck so she could pull Myka towards her.

For a split second, Myka just thought they were going to hug again. But then Helena’s mouth crashed into her own, and oh, this was so much better.

There was no finesse. No light, polite peck on the lips.

Helena was _kissing_ her, and Myka reached out to wrap one arm around Helena’s back as her other hand clutched desperately at Helena’s jaw, and she kissed back with a hunger that still somehow surprised her.

Myka only realized that she was fully crying now when their kiss turned salty.

Helena pulled back so she could reach out and wipe the tears away. She was looking at Myka with an expression of total awe.

“You love me?” she asked, her voice shaky and soft.

Myka could only nod.

The smile on Helena’s face lit up the dark night, and she leaned back in to kiss Myka again, just a hard, earnest press of her lips to Myka’s.

“Will you come home?” Myka whispered when they broke apart again. “Not right now, obviously. But… soon? Will you come back?”

Helena simply stared at her for a long moment before she began to speak.

“I know that you were the one with amnesia, but since then I have tried so very hard to forget you; to let you go.” Myka’s troubled expression must have been clear, because Helena reached out to cup Myka’s cheek, anchoring them together. “I truly thought it was the best thing I could do for you. And so I somehow keep finding myself in the position of telling you goodbye, when it is the absolute last thing I want to do.”

Myka’s eyes brimmed with hope, but she couldn’t quite be sure…

“Helena what are you saying?” she asked. “Is this just another goodbye?”

Helena smiled—a smile so tender and full of affection it made Myka breathe in deeply at the sight of it. “My darling, I have loved you for so long, and the mere idea that _you_ would come back to fight for _me_ …” That awestruck look in Helena’s eyes returned. “I am done with saying goodbye. I believe that it’s high time I stopped walking away from my truth. There is nowhere else I’d rather be than with you.”

Myka choked out a teary laugh, hardly able to believe that this was happening. Just because she could, she reached out and pulled Helena into a warm, tight embrace. Helena’s whole body relaxed, melting into Myka’s arms.

There was still so much that would need to be resolved, but Myka was no longer worried.

Solving problems was what the two of them did, after all. Whatever came next, they’d figure it out together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "Atlantis" by Ellie Golding, which is playing at the end of episode 4.15 ("Instinct").


End file.
